Heil Mien Bruder
by matsukanishi09
Summary: Picking up the shards of broken glass was never not painful. Even to Prussia. A story of a brother lost and a brother found.  Prussia/HRE and Prussia/Germany brotherhood.


**Notes:**

**HUMAN NAMES**

**Gilbert - **Prussia

**Francis - **France

**Roderich - **Austria

**Elizaveta - **Hungary

**Feliciano - **Italy Veneciano

**Heil Mien Bruder**

Gilbert scavenged through the remains of what once was a battlefield, hoping that he could find something that would lead him to his brother. He searched the bloody fields in desperate silence, not wanting to even say a word as his bare hands scooped out heads and spears, throwing limp bodies here and there without even distinguishing which was which.

Blonde. He only _needed _to look for someone with bleached, blonde hair.

He jumped through the pile of bodies littered on the floor, kicking on helmets and regalia that belonged to France's army. His heart was beginning to become hollow, thoughts of his dead brother, so young and so adorable, just couldn't escape his head._ No, he's alive_, he thought desperately._ He must be alive_.

Someone groaned.

Gilbert turned and swiftly ran towards the sound he heard amidst the dead wind. His bloody hands tore through everything, the desperation wheeled firmly on his face and body, the sweat mingling with blood and dirt.

"_B-Bruder..._"[1]

There he was. The adorable brother he loved and valued other than himself. Tears sprung out of Gilbert's eyes at the image presented to him, so queer yet so tragic, so tranquil yet so melancholic.

He was holding a deck brush. A deck brush that Gilbert knew nothing of. It was free from scratches and dents, only a bit bloody and dirty yet in perfect condition all the same.

It was as if his brother protected it, cherished it and loved it more than his own life.

Because even though the deck brush was far from damaged, his brother's body was anything but. A spear embedded with the French insignia was plunged right into his chest and the blood and dirt that was on the deck brush were on his brother's lips, arms, body and feet, too.

"_B-Bruder..._"

Gilbert called out once more, his voice and hands quivering. He was still alive, his brother, yet barely. The wound most likely tore up his stomach and liver or punctured his lungs. Elizaveta once told him during the previous wars that those wounds are the most fatal of all and _no one _could ever live with that.

Especially not a _child._

"_B-Bru...der..._" Gilbert glared in a blurry haze, the tears not mingling with the blood and sweat on his face. He wanted to tell his brother to not talk, to conserve his energy until he found help, until he would be able to fix him up and let him be new again.

But that was impossible. His younger brother was _dying. _They both knew that.

"_Ita...li..en..schüt...zen.._."[1]

The sky tore up and washed all the blood that night. Pouring down on the gruesome end of a once mighty empire, an adorable child, a lovable brother.

The downpour ended and Holy Roman Empire ended with it.

**-o-**

"I...can't."

Gilbert just stared at Francis, his face a mask of non-existent emotions. There was no hurt, no surprise, no anger. Just...nothing.

Francis merely stared deep into Gilbert's red gaze, not knowing what else there was for him to do. Gilbert wasn't usually like this. The last time the Prussian had ever looked this forlorn was when Old Fritz died and that was years_-_no, _decades-_ago.

It was scary, the way Gilbert looked. Far more scary now in comparison whenever Gilbert would swing a rifle and charge his way, the anger gleaming in his eyes...

Coldness never suited the temperamental man, after all.

"I'm sorry, Prusien. _Je suis désolé,[2]_" Francis said in a flurry of French and English all the while downing his glass of wine, noting how the other man didn't even bother to touch his. "I couldn't possibly tell poor Italy-cha-"

"Why not?" his voice was cold, bitingly cold. "You killed him, after all."

Gilbert walked out of the French's estate before he could begin his explanation. He had heard it enough, the whispers and talks of the people regarding how Francis drowned himself in alcohol day and night, never forgiving himself for killing that precious, _precious_ child. Yet, orders were orders and as a nation, he wasn't the one who should be defying those orders and as much as it _hurt_-it still does, that stinging sensation-he flawlessly carried out the deed, scarring the pour, fragile soul of a once glorious empire that crumbled on the palm of his hands.

Yes, Gilbert has heard enough about that.

And he knew, just by visiting and saying a sentence or two to the Frenchman, that Francis couldn't bear to say the news of Holy Roman Empire's death to Feliciano. Because when Gilbert's face showed up on his doorstep, the desperation was there, mingled in the smell of alcohol and burnt cigarettes.

For Francis could never forgive himself, not unless Gilbert does so. And the thought of wanting Feliciano's forgiveness too was all the more unbearable.

**-o-**

He didn't comfort, much less talk.

Gilbert came to Roderich's house with the bloodied deck brush in his hand, not even bothering to clean it up to make it look presentable.

The blood should be enough. That way, even a child as dense as Italy would realize what must have happened.

After all, Roderich and Elizaveta gave him looks of pain and shock before they let him enter and the tears on the Hungarian's face was a vision Gilbert wouldn't want to remember as part of his dreams.

He's had enough nightmares as it is.

"Italien," he called the small child in his native tongue, feeling dirt on his mouth as his grip on the deck brush unconsciously tightened. He was so young, so _innocent _that he couldn't bare the thought of seeing the same pained expression on the small child's face as he delivered the news of the Holy Roman Empire's downfall. "F-Feliciano..." Yes, it was Feliciano right now. No more girly chants of Italy-chan or cute pen names like Chibitalia.

Right now, he wasn't addressing the weak nation. He was addressing the _human _that was the nation.

The smaller nation merely stared, a splotch of tomato on the corner of his lips, something that even Roderich had no strength to question. It was silent as Gilbert knelt down and handed him the deck brush, not saying anything because he's too afraid that he might break down...

So he watched. He watched as the small nation's eyes teared, as those _pure, innocent tears _fell on the bloody deck brush and how he called for Holy Roman Empire's _name _in a desperate chant that rivaled the screams Gilbert had during the nights of nightmares. Gilbert wanted to hug him, to _comfort _him and to _protect _him-yet he merely watched.

Until Feliciano ran off, chanting the name of a lost empire, then his twin's. At least Roderich would know where to look for him later.

"I'm going," he stood up and dusted his military uniform, only to be enveloped within the arms of his war buddy, his enemy, his _friend._

Elizaveta sang_ Einsamkeit [1]_ from behind, the lyrics drowned in a flurry of tears and words of comfort.

And before the last verse came to a halt, Gilbert cried in Elizaveta's arms.

**-o-**

He wanted to escape. The mighty awesome Prussia, the greatest nation of all, wanted to escape.

So he went West. The barren lands of West Germania. Gilbert never tried to go through these lands, even his superiors never doted on it. Only the great Germania had wielded both parts of their motherland and Holy Roman Empire was on his way to _make _things right...

"Excuse me, who are you?" a small voice rang through and Gilbert searched and searched, his heart thumping wildly on his chest.

Blonde. As blonde as the sun that begins to shine against the barren lands of West Germania.

At first glance, Gilbert thought that it was Holy Roman Empire. The same blonde hair, the same height and build and the same scowling expression. It was the same, all too same and he almost made that mistake of identifying him as the brother Francis pierced through the abdomen, the brother who loved Feliciano and whom Feliciano loved back and the brother who just _died._

_"_I asked who you are," the small child sighed and looked up, gazing through the blood-red eyes of Gilbert.

Yes. It was the eyes. This young one's eyes were different from Holy Roman Empire's. These eyes have never seen war, have never experienced loss and tragedy, have never been _corrupted._

He's like a new nation, a new land. And the constricting emotions on Gilbert's heart just...ebbed away.

"Me?" he knelt down and ruffled the child's head, _laughing _as he brushed his hand away. "I'm the awesome Prussia, that's who I am!"

And as he taunted and teased the new child, Gilbert just couldn't help but feel his redemption. His escape from that gruesome nightmares he had for the past nights.

"I'm your _bruder! _Call me that, West!"

And maybe, he could escape those bad memories. Maybe, he could eventually forgive Francis, thank Elizaveta and Roderich and ultimately, comfort and protect Feliciano.

Because right in front of him was his new reason for living, for behaving like the same Gilbert everyone knew and learned to love and for finally letting Holy Roman Empire go.

And that salvation, that blonde child...

He named him Germany.

**E.N.D.E.**

**GERMAN LINGO TRANSLATION [1]**

**Bruder - **Brother

**Italien ****schützen - **Protect Italy

**Einsamkeit - **Loneliness (A song from Germany's Character CD. LOLOLOL)

**FRENCH LINGO [2]**

**Je suis désolé - **I'm sorry


End file.
